Lifelines earthquake vulnerability assessment: a systemic approach

This study aimed at developing a model to evaluate lifelines seismic vulnerability, considering physical, functional, and organizational factors as deeply interconnected one to the other. The resulting assessment tool consists of a set of parameters measuring the response capacity of lifelines exposed to earthquakes.

The notion of systemic vulnerability is the underlying frame of the proposed evaluation method: what can be measured is how prone is a system to damage or failure not only as a consequence of some kind of physical damage occurring to one of its components, but also as the indirect effect of some physical, functional, or organizational failure suffered by other systems.

The assessment tool has been applied in Regione Lombardia, Italy, providing as a final output recommendations for prioritizing and taking actions to reduce the potential of magnified effects as a consequence of lifelines interruption in earthquakes aftermath.